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The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation

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If you're looking for the perfect gift for someone who's riveted to television shows like CSI, you won't find a better one than Dr. Katherine Ramland's latest book, THE HUMAN PREDATOR: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation (Berkley Hardcover; Oct. 4, 2005). It's an extraordinarily well-researched book, written in a flowing, easy-to-understand style. You'll not only learn about serial murder but also the historical background of forensic science in its response to this phenomenon.

THE HUMAN PREDATOR is the first book-length chronicle of the serial killer from ancient Rome to the present day, and it becomes clear that cultural factors influence their manifestation. While not every killer could be included, lest the book become encyclopedic, key cases from different time periods are analyzed for the "specific cultural conditions, individual processing of those conditions, and opportunity" that affected that criminal's development. In the Dark Ages, for example, wealthy nobles like French hero Gilles de Rais and the Countess Elizabeth Bathory made Jack the Ripper look like a Boy Scout.

Threaded throughout this absorbing book is how science and psychology evolved alongside the history of the serial killer, providing the tools to catch these criminals and a growing understanding of their psyche. Forensic sciences developed early: in 1247, a Chinese lawyer produced the first work of forensic science, including how to tell the difference between a suicide, homicide and natural death. The U.S. has led development of a body of knowledge about serial killers, mostly through the FBI's legendary Behavioral Analysis Unit that played a key role in The Silence of the Lambs. Ramsland knows firsthand the pioneering contributions of these profilers, John Douglas, Robert Ressler and Roy Hazelwood, having written about and with them.

Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation by Katherine Ramsland, Ph. D. is a detailed and comprehensive anthology of multiple murder events and serial killers from the "Alphabet Murders" through the infamous "Zodiac Killings" and is an excellent research resource.

Katherine, whose educational credentials include masters' degrees in forensic psychology, clinical psychology, and philosophy has utilized her research expertise to present to the reader an historical and cultural analysis of serial and multiple murder as well as the development of forensic science and the application of that forensic science as well as forensic psychology to the criminal investigation of serial murder.

This book delves into the phenomenon of serial murder in the context of specific historical periods. The author utilized over 180 publications and sources to trace the history and incidents of serial murder providing the reader with thumbnail biographical sketches of a myriad of multiple murderers. Starting with the Dark Ages and culminating with events of the new millennium, Katherine takes the reader through history up to the present time with her presentation and documentation of famous cases of multiple and serial murders, the journalistic coverage of these heinous crimes and the social reaction to the "evil" of serial murder, which to this day continues to shock our sense of wellbeing.

This book is without precedence. I was personally amazed by the amount of research, source information and exertion that Katherine Ramsland put into this tome. I am grateful to have an autographed copy of this book in my personal library and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the subject, history and etiology of serial murder.

I don't understand some of the positive reviews of this book that appear here; perhaps they read a different book than the one I read. The book I read is a shallow, hastily written book that would appear to me to be useful neither to scholars nor the general audience. The entire book consists of a list of one or two paragraph summaries of alleged serial killers (and, oddly, other killers) throughout history, needlessly padded by equally shallow historical summaries of whatever historical era that chapter covers. Also interspersed are one or two paragraph summaries of developments in criminology--even those that have zero to do with serial killers (in other words, more padding).

There is no analysis to speak of, just a collection of anecdotes, but even the anecdotes are so brief and devoid of detail that they do not pique the interest. There is nothing like a case study here, just shallow summaries. And none of the text is sourced at all, which is particularly relevant for the early chapters, where the sources of information are likely to be particularly controversial.

So the book is not interesting enough for a general reader, but the lack of analysis or detail makes it useless for an academic or criminal justice professional, so I am at pains to think of an audience that might actually find this book useful. Even for people who simply want to ogle at a list of serial killers and their exploits, there are various "encyclopedias" of serial killers that provide more detail.

The book was so tedious it was difficult to finish, and one would not think that a book on a subject like serial killers of all things, would have difficulties in holding the interest. But the problem is that there really isn't anything of substance in this book. I urge people to look elsewhere, such as the overview of serial killers by Peter Vronsky. This book is unlikely to satisfy.

I have read several books detailing the history of serial murder or murders. The majority follow a sequencial history of the individuals involved in this type of crime. This particular book has, to me, a slightly different and facinating approach. Yes it follows a sequencial approach through time, but the way the author intertwines history itself, political, religious, etc and the evolving societies with the dark characters that litter history it makes for much more interesting reading.
The book gives examples of what was occurring in the world and how these criminals were woven into that patchwork. Runing the same timeline Ramsland also details how forensic investigation also evolved and developed along with the perpertartors. If you just want to know who the serial murders were buy a straigh history of them. If you want to be entertained by what was happening in the world as criminals and their detection related to history this is the book for you.
I personally found the approach different and facinating reading.

This book is well researched and cited, and chronicles many cases of multiple homicide over a huge time span. The main drawback is that there are so many cases and incidents cited, that it tends to read like an encyclopedia entry at some points. Some cases are quickly mentioned simply because they occurred during a specific time period, but the author does not always explain why the cases are significant. I encountered some pages that seemed like a rambling list of names and dates from a dozen different cases, followed by a page of detailed descriptions of a single case.

This is better used as a look-up reference, rather than an engaging read, because the author tries to cover what should be a thousand pages of material in just a couple hundred.

I was inclined to buy this book until my confidence in the quality of the author's research was undermined when I read a sample page of her introduction to the work. Writing of early fifteenth century Scotland and the probably mythical stories of the Scots cannibal Sawney Beane, she says, 'When King John I of England (and IV of Scotland) heard the tales,he sent soldiers to investigate.' King John I of England was an early 13th century king who lived many years before the date of the Sawney Beane stories. Furthermore he was an English Angevin king, prior to the union of the Scottish and English crowns; he therefore had no jurisdiction in Scotland. He was certainly not, as the author says, 'John IV' of Scotland; no such person ever existed. Scotland has had only one King John, that was John Balliol, who was an elected king from 1292-1296 - again this is well before the supposed lifetime of Sawney Beane.

I have to say I personally enjoyed reading this book, as a criminal justice student and self-proclaimed serial killer expert I have read this one from front to back. Dr. Ramsland is a great author and despite a previous bad review on Amazon I found this book to be a great edition to my library. This one actually got me a few "A Plus" grades when I included it in my works cited, excellent read and I recommend it to anyone who reads this type of book even when you aren't doing a research paper.

Haven't finished this book but I contains a lot of Info covering many era's, so it is small tidbits of a plethora of covered cases.

My best friend is studying to be a criminalist and she absolutely loved this book. She said would be a great aid in her research.

I suppose that being a cable television "star"and an attractive looking woman has its advantages..You can write a whole slew of badly written books and still get them published..Katherine Ramsland has a Ph.d in"philosophy"..it is obvious,after reading any one of her numerous,badly written books,that her doctorate was not in creative writing...Still,in this world today one need only have the required piece of academic paper in order to get doors opened,and need not actually have any real talent for telling a story...I have a nephew who graduated from a culinary arts school...now one would think that he could cook the pants off of most folks,but in reality he can hardly cook at all..Oh,yes,he passed all of the required courses to obtain his degree,but that did not mean that he actually learned how to make a tasty meal..
Ramsland's serial killer opus is nothing more than a compendium of facts thrown together in a sort of timeline ...nothing deep,nothing penetrating,indeed,nothing particularly new or interesting..So-and-so the serial killer killed such and such...police caught up with him and in such and such year he went to prison,while at the same time so-and-so scientist discovered this or that forensic technique...This,in a nutshell,is how the whole 306 pages of Ramsland's opus reads...
I would think that ,even for the casual reader interested in either serial killers or forensic science,this sort of paragraph and a half approach would be a little bit sparse...certainly for those who want DETAILS,Ramslandd's opus is a disappointment...Thrown in along with all of the very very short tidbits about crime and science is a junior high school styled history of world events...nothing deep here either..Ramsland merely writes that ,for example,at the time such and such killer was killing and/or such and such scientist was discovering,Napoleon,or maybe Caligula,or maybe the roman catholic church was doing something or another that is noteworthy...All in all a bland narrative that should be avoided at all costs...